[Secretum]

Do you ever feel upset about something but unable to explain just exactly what is bothering you? Like a baby who can only moan or cry when s/he is uncomfortable?

Just curious as to how many other bipolars have felt the same way. This happens to me a lot, despite the fact that I usually have a talent for words...

[Moose72]

Originally Posted by Secretum

Do you ever feel upset about something but unable to explain just exactly what is bothering you? Like a baby who can only moan or cry when s/he is uncomfortable?

Just curious as to how many other bipolars have felt the same way. This happens to me a lot, despite the fact that I usually have a talent for words...

If its severe pain yes. Then, I can't talk.

[SunAngel]

Originally Posted by Moose72

If its severe pain yes. Then, I can't talk.

All the time. If I am even talking with my T, I cannot put into words what or how I am feeling if I am in a whole lot of pain.

[BNLsMOM]

I have a hard time too. In therapy I use a lot of metaphors, but even they don't pinpoint what I am trying to say. Unfortunately, there aren't words to describe exactly what we as humans and as people with bipolar feel.

[popeye]

As a psych nurse I can usually tell my Pdoc how I feel and she can tell by my body language. I know when I am Manic,Depressed,or Hypomanic. However as said above sometimes the words just don't come out. Sometimes I tell my Pdoc that I have the "I don't knows". Thats usually when I am hypomanic usually.

[moxycrayon]

One time when I was hypomanic, I guess, I told my husband how unhappy I was and upset. When he'd ask why I literally started to kick out my legs and punch the bed but couldn't talk. I felt like a stupid child which only made me more angry. And when I'm mixed its like there's so much in my head I want to scream but instead I'm mute.

Constantly. Being a self professed wordsmith, it's absolutely aggravating when I cannot seem to find a single word to explain how I am feeling or what is going on in my head. This isn't just limited to episodes, so I'm not sure what that says about me. :'D

All I can say is "I don't want to be here". I don't think that communicates the shear god smacking pain I am in. It is after all what I hear the voices repeat over and over. I usually have a gift for words too but not when it comes to this.

[CjnGyrl74]

'I try to scream but it only comes out as a yawn' ~Barenaked Ladies

[Tsunamisurfer]

Yes. My pdoc doesn't like me replying with AAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHH!!!!! I just wanna die!!!!!
And often I can't say I'm "depressed" or "manic" or "mixed" because it in no way describes the agony, desolation, fear of attack by the unknown, and certainty it is already reproducing in my body and its only demise will be in extremely hot fire.
The trouble with talking about it for 40 mins (before she provides the next script) is I go in with my paranoia partly subdued, and by the time I have finished explaining it and answering her rather penetrating questions, my stress levels have gone through the roof and she is ready to hospitalise me again for manic psychosis.

In trying to describe upset, it's a mixed bag. I usually won't but pretty well could. Sort of. The problem is that it is so interwoven, it is hard to convey how scrambled it is for me. It's everything, all at once, and I can't parse it out. The words are there, it's just... I guess what falls short aren't the words themselves, but how intense the simultaneous deluge from every angle is.

When hypomanic, I can pretty much put it into words...at a mile a minute from 7 angles all at once. I can't transfer the actual feeling to another of course, but I think they get some sense of it just from watching and listening.

But when severly depressed? No, not at all, and God how I've tried. It's incredibly frustrating, especially being something of a wordsmith like many have also said. There are no words.

[Bipolar Mark]

Frequently when I am depressed though not when I am high usually. When I am depressed it just like an emptiness, a black hole that I can't escape from. I try to explain to my T but I always come away feeling like I haven't explained how terrible I may be feeling. When I am severly depressed it's like my emotions just shut down and I think and feel nothing at which point it is near on impossible to communicate with anyone as whatever is said to just does not register inside my head

[popeye]

Originally Posted by Innerzone

In trying to describe upset, it's a mixed bag. I usually won't but pretty well could. Sort of. The problem is that it is so interwoven, it is hard to convey how scrambled it is for me. It's everything, all at once, and I can't parse it out. The words are there, it's just... I guess what falls short aren't the words themselves, but how intense the simultaneous deluge from every angle is.

When hypomanic, I can pretty much put it into words...at a mile a minute from 7 angles all at once. I can't transfer the actual feeling to another of course, but I think they get some sense of it just from watching and listening.

But when severly depressed? No, not at all, and God how I've tried. It's incredibly frustrating, especially being something of a wordsmith like many have also said. There are no words.

When I am asked how I feel by my Pdoc I often respond...."its a mixed bag"

[wing]

i have trouble articulating because when i start to explore that deep well of accumulated pain, i back off. it's a monster I can only peek at, not look full in the face so I can't describe what I've barely looked at.

[Butterflies Are Free]

It's taken me several years to get to the point of being able to know what/how I was feeling and to be able to describe it to my doctor and therapist. Sometimes I think I sound like a little kid(when I am depressed), but I do try to put my real feelings out there. I know it can be hard!

[Ygrec23]

Oh yeah. Like I'm angry at someone else, and I don't know it, and then I take it out on myself without realizing I'm really mad at another person, and then, sometimes, a month later I'll realize what's going on.

Or T and I will put our engineering hats on and determine scientifically (like guys looking for oil) that 500 yards underground there's a gusher of (fill in the blank with your favorite negative emotion). We know it's there. It's been scientifically triangulated and sensed and measured.

Only problem, I don't feel a thing. So obviously I can't articulate it. I have a whole Saudi Arabia of repressed pain from all the way back. But I can't feel it. Been in therapy 18 months. Won't stop therapy until I'm in touch with all of that. And delete it. Take care.

[AniManiac]

For sure. I get all knotted up with some kind of awfulness that I just can't really describe, so I don't even try. And usually this is when everything looks fine on the outside but is shattering on the inside, so even if I tried to put it into words, no one really believes that I'm feeling that distressed.

On the hypomanic end, though, I just say that I'm "in love with the world" and use a lot of superlatives. But it doesn't really get at the compulsiveness, impulsiveness, and frenzy that goes with that.

[BlackPup]

I often can't find the words to describe whats wrong when I'm upset - its nice to know that I'm not the only one

All the time

[Elyria]

Originally Posted by BNLsMOM

I have a hard time too. In therapy I use a lot of metaphors, but even they don't pinpoint what I am trying to say. Unfortunately, there aren't words to describe exactly what we as humans and as people with bipolar feel.

BNLsMOM, I do EXACTLY the same thing. I drive my husband crazy, because I use metaphors constantly as a way to try to articulate what something feels like. My Dx is only a month or so hence, but I have done this with him the entire 12 years we have been together.

I probably would have done it before that, too, but at the tail end of 10 kids and an introvert until my 20's, I honestly don't think anyone ever asked me to try to talk about my feelings before him.

I wonder if it's a BP thing or just a right-brain thing or what. I know I don't have a good grasp on what i am feeling most of the time, and only in hindsight can I do a post-mortem of sorts on my feelings from an earlier time. Anyway, I just thought it was funny that you do that, too.

[espritlibre]

I can't, at all. I use analogies a lot. I feel like whatever I *do* say comes out in a melodramatic, clichéd way (but that could be my perception of it). Pain and emotion just aren't tangible things, therefore it seems impossible to put words to them. And yes, I am a writer/linguist too so it is incredibly frustrating for me.